III

“Everybody knows. He is a revolutionary
feminist, a great writer, if you like, and—­how
shall I say it—­the—­the familiar
guest of Madame de S—­’s mystic revolutionary
salon.”

Miss Haldin passed her hand over her forehead.

“You know, he was with me for more than an hour
before you came in. I was so glad mother was
lying down. She has many nights without sleep,
and then sometimes in the middle of the day she gets
a rest of several hours. It is sheer exhaustion—­but
still, I am thankful.... If it were not for these
intervals....”

She looked at me and, with that extraordinary penetration
which used to disconcert me, shook her head.

“No. She would not go mad.”

“My dear young lady,” I cried, by way
of protest, the more shocked because in my heart I
was far from thinking Mrs. Haldin quite sane.

“You don’t know what a fine, lucid intellect
mother had,” continued Nathalie Haldin, with
her calm, clear-eyed simplicity, which seemed to me
always to have a quality of heroism.

“I am sure....” I murmured.

“I darkened mother’s room and came out
here. I’ve wanted for so long to think
quietly.”

She paused, then, without giving any sign of distress,
added, “It’s so difficult,” and
looked at me with a strange fixity, as if watching
for a sign of dissent or surprise.

I gave neither. I was irresistibly impelled to
say—­

“The visit from that gentleman has not made
it any easier, I fear.”

Miss Haldin stood before me with a peculiar expression
in her eyes.

“I don’t pretend to understand completely.
Some guide one must have, even if one does not wholly
give up the direction of one’s conduct to him.
I am an inexperienced girl, but I am not slavish, There
has been too much of that in Russia. Why should
I not listen to him? There is no harm in having
one’s thoughts directed. But I don’t
mind confessing to you that I have not been completely
candid with Peter Ivanovitch. I don’t quite
know what prevented me at the moment....”

She walked away suddenly from me to a distant part
of the room; but it was only to open and shut a drawer
in a bureau. She returned with a piece of paper
in her hand. It was thin and blackened with close
handwriting. It was obviously a letter.

“I wanted to read you the very words,”
she said. “This is one of my poor brother’s
letters. He never doubted. How could he doubt?
They make only such a small handful, these miserable
oppressors, before the unanimous will of our people.”

“Your brother believed in the power of a people’s
will to achieve anything?”